Gargoyles
by SaberlaVibe
Summary: A month after Fang leaves, Max is still trying to cope with it. But, if she finds out he's in trouble, what choice does she have but to save him?
1. The First Stage of Grief

We all sat at the kitchen table, silently eating the meal that Iggy had cooked perfectly. Well, everyone but I did at least. I stared into its perfection, not registering even a detail of it.

"Max?" Nudge tried to say my name quietly enough to not draw attention to me. The four other bird kids' perfect ears heard of course, and they looked from me to Nudge, ruining her reasons to keep quiet.

"We're worried about you, Max," Gazzy didn't make any effort to keep quiet or draw attention away from me. But, what was more alarming was how serious he sounded. Probably the most serious I'd ever heard him other than when he was reporting different ways he could kill something smack-dab in the middle of a fight. But this couldn't be farther from a fight.

I felt vulnerable, like something was trying to break my defense, but instead of force, it was gentle. And instead of these kids having my back, it was just me on defense. Only me with the shield.

And it was falling fast. It fell every night, when I cried, and every day it became harder and harder to rebuild it. I was just turning into silence itself in attempt to keep it up now.

"Max…" Nudge spoke again, "It's been a month and four days now, and we still haven't talked about it. This is unlike you. We always talk. We're family… We-"

My chair made an awkward noise as I quickly, violently pushed it back and stood up.

"You don't think I know that? So, talk, Nudge. If there's so much to talk about, speak. But he left, and the last time I checked, that's a pretty simple subject to grasp." I grabbed my plate angrily and threw all of it into the trash, silverware and all. I went to my room, down the hall in front of the E house. I didn't know what I was going to do, I just knew that someone worrying about me was the last thing I wanted, and I needed to be farthest from that that I could get.

He had left so that I could be a better leader, and look at me. I was falling apart.

I still woke up every morning expecting to see him sleeping at the end of my bed, like he used to do when he'd stay up with me talking and get too tired to walk to his room. I still went to sleep every night expecting to hear him talking to Iggy three rooms over about something I wouldn't pay attention to. His voice had been my focus.

Just like he had said. When he was here, I only wanted to be right next to him, holding his hand or kissing him. And when he was gone, I missed him and wanted him to be near. It had now been a month of him gone, and the people I was supposed to be looking out for were worrying about _me_.

I flopped down on my bed, trying to clear my head.

_Max, it's natural to miss him, but priorities should never be with something you've already lost, _said my oh-so-helpful Voice. Now, on a normal day, I would have come up with some witty comment about it being Confucius, but today wasn't a normal day. No day was anymore. And, even though I'm really not one to cuss, I think for the first time in history I actually may have offended it. It didn't say anything else.

I sat up, feeling like no matter what position I put myself in tonight, I wouldn't be comfortable enough to sleep. I leaned up against the wall, and sensed someone was about to walk in my door.

I heard a timid knock, and after a nonresponsive silence, Angel stepped in. Even though I'd been doing such a horrid job of leading, she didn't try to take over. His letter had taken its toll on her too. She stepped down to let me recover in time, like he'd said for her to do, and still let me run to the best of my abilities. I guessed this was her way of coping for an absence of a flock member none of us had gone this long with.

"Max, are you alright? You didn't even touch your pork in there," she started. Pork. I'd thought it had been steak. Guess I really didn't give it the time of day to find out.

"Yeah, I'm just really not that hungry," I lied to a mind reader. She nearly rolled her eyes, but held back for my sake. She held out a plate of leftovers, loaded with deliciousness, and sat it in my lap. I decided to let her give it to me, and started to eat like a ravenous… well, bird. She gave a ½ grin.

"Max, what's going on? No- never mind- don't answer that. I know. I've been in the same page as you involuntarily for a month," she gave an almost angry look for a second, but soon passed to worry.

"Angel… I know I can't lie to you or else I would. So, no, I'm not fine. I'll get through this. Eventually. I just need some time," I explained, and she looked at the floor.

"I get it. You just need to… adapt. That's fine, for me. But, Max, I'm not the one who needs you. I'm fine. Individually, we're all coping in our own way. But, as a whole, all of us, well… Max, we're breaking. We're falling apart. Our relationships and trust are just… going under," She said slowly, gently.

"I can't believe you're eight. What eight year old talks like this?" I smiled to myself, proud of her for having deep understanding. She gave me a worried look all over again. I sighed. "Just… time. I'll be better."

"I hope so, Max. I honestly don't know what power time has that we don't though," she said defiantly. I frowned and laid my head back down on my pillow. She sat there for a few seconds before standing and walking out of my room.

About fifteen seconds after she left, she popped her head into my room, and said, urgently: "Time's up, Max. We have company."


	2. Company

It took me about ½ a second to recall my fighting instincts, like a month of complete calm never happened. I jumped up and ran to the front of the house.

There was just a speck in the distance against the pitch black sky, and I knew that if our eyes hadn't been greatly modified, this danger wouldn't have been seen until too late. It was just me and Angel on the porch, but the flock slowly started coming out, seeing us out front.

"What's going on?" Iggy asked.

"There's something coming. It's about a mile off. If it's a lot of threats, I can't tell how many yet," I replied, focusing and refocusing, trying to estimate a number. No luck. It was still just one little speck.

"Oh, I see it. It's just one, Max. And she looks like she's flying. But, not like us. Different… I can't explain," Dylan just looked out into the pitch black. We all looked over at him, almost with our jaws dropped.

"You… can tell… it's a girl?" was all I could say. I still wasn't completely used to him being the Clark Kent around.

"Well, yeah," he seemed pleased that I was seemingly impressed. I immediately wiped the dumbfounded expression off my face, and pretended it didn't affect me. I looked back into the darkness. She was closer, maybe half a mile.

"Get ready to fight-"

"Wait! Max, they usually don't send just one. She may not be coming to fight," Nudge interrupted.

They all seemed to contemplate this while I was torn. It was true, they always sent more. Unless she was extremely strong. But even then, no one could stand against six bird kids, no matter how strong or smart.

"Ok…" I decided. Everyone looked at me. "But, keep your guards up. Way up. We never know what they have up their sleeve." They nodded and looked back out into the darkness.

She was much closer, maybe ten seconds away. I could see what Dylan was saying about her not flying the same way as us. She flapped her wings a lot more frequently and she never glided like we can, but she didn't seem wounded either. She still held a certain gracefulness about her.

She was yards away, in plain view now, when she turned upward, like she was planning on just simply going over our house. We heard her stop flapping her wings when she got to the top of our roof. We looked at each other in confusion, asking with our eyes. Did she just land… _on the roof_?

After a few moments of silence, we heard sliding, and the girl fell off the roof onto our porch with a 'thump' on her stomach. She moaned and rolled over onto her back. Whatever wings she had were now retracted and covered by a jacket she'd put on. I motioned to everyone to stay where they were and walked over to her. They followed me quietly. I rolled my eyes.

It wasn't very hard to assume she wasn't the best at landing.

"Are you… ok?" Nudge asked. I looked back at her, half glaring, trying to tell her to hush. I noticed Angel was closing her eyes and rubbing her temple. No one in the flock had ever had really bad headaches, so this threw me off. I gathered my thoughts back together. I'd have to ask her about it later.

"Who are you and what do you want?" I asked in my best attempt of a superior voice. She pushed up on her arms and stood up slowly.

She looked my age, but was a bit shorter than me, with a similar, but different build. She was still thin, like us, but with a curvier touch. Her hair was brown like mine, but shorter. She looked up at the roof, thinking about something, and then looked to the palms of her hands. She frowned.

"What is your roof _made_ of?" She asked, stumped about something.

"A special medal that's meant to make whoever lands on it slip and fall," Gazzy explained proudly. She frowned at him.

"Very clever," she replied, bemused. He beamed.

"Who are you and what do you want?" I repeated. She looked up at me. I was shocked by her cold, grey eyes, but quickly recovered.

"Are you Max Ride?" She asked.

"What?"

"Are you _Max Ride_?" She repeated. How did she know my last name? Only the flock new that. And Jeb. Not that it was a super personal or anything, but I didn't exactly have a birth certificate… or a certificate of existing at all, in fact.

"Yes, and you are…?" I trailed off.

"Dame. Just Dame."

"What do you need? And why are you here? And… Why did you just land on our roof?" I only asked the last question with genuine curiosity.

"Can we go inside and talk? It's not really a short story," she asked.

I took a moment to think, and nodded. I let her go first, not out of common courtesy (ha-ha), but because if she was going to try something, I wanted to be the first to know. She hesitated, but walked in.

In the pitch black, she navigated through our house, to our living room, onto our couch. She must have memorized the blueprints of our house somehow. I thought about it, and may have accepted that theory, if Jeb hadn't built it himself. I turned the lights on.

"Spill," I said, and flopped onto the nearby recliner. She half grinned. The rest of the flock came in and made themselves comfortable.

By now, even Total and Akila were sitting with us. Only I knew these kids well enough to recognize, through their seeming ease, their tension. That if I made the motion they could pounce. I was almost scared for her. Almost.

She started. "As you may have noticed, I'm not completely human. Like you. But… not like you."

"Nice explanation," I said under my breath. She rolled her eyes. So, she had super hearing. Excellent.

"I'm from a lab somewhere north. I don't know how north. Several miles. I escaped seven years ago with my colony… er… flock," she said correcting herself. I gave her a questioning look. She shook it off and kept going. "It was just made up of me and another. His name was… is," she took a small breath, "Lock". She instantly had a hurt look on her face. It wasn't hard to put it together. She came alone. I gave her a second to regather her thoughts. I could relate too well. She shook her head to continue.

"Well, about a year ago or… I don't even know. Maybe a couple months, maybe two years ago, I just couldn't tell. We were captured in our cave," she paused. "House. I was sleeping, those cowards," she said the last part to herself angrily.

"Ok… So, what brought you here? How did you escape this lab? And where's… The rest of your flock?" I asked. She paused and grinned to herself about something. Then the question dawned on her.

She looked down at our floor. She breathed quietly, and crossed her arms, like she was cold. Remembering. "They're not very merciful, you know," She said quietly, and I nodded involuntarily.

She took a breath. "I'm here because I can't find them alone. I can't fight the scientists alone, and I'm not so proud as to try."

"Whoa," I started, "Wait. 'They'? How many? I thought you said Lock was the only one in your flock. Not saying we're agreeing to anything," I felt Nudge and Angel eye me, "…yet. But, you're being pretty vague. I don't do well with vague."

She sighed. "Well, for starters. You have one slight detail wrong about me."

I waited. She stood up, took off her jacket, and spread out her 16-foot wing span.

Whoa.

Sorry for the minor cliff hanger. I really needed a stopping point. Next chapter will be up soon. :-P.


End file.
